Safety Seats

In an effort to reduce traffic deaths and injuries, Westminster police and Maryland State Police are joining law enforcement officers across the country in a "Buckle Up, America" campaign. It starts tomorrow and runs through May 30.The nationwide campaign, which highlights the life-saving potential of safety belts, child safety seats and air bags, coincides with the start of the summer vacation season, when more vehicles are on the highways.Red, white and blue ribbons will be tied to the radio antenna of local police cars as part of the campaign.

People were yelling at him to slow down, but Buck John Benny apparently didn't listen. The 16-year-old was driving home Wednesday night from swimming at Patapsco Valley State Park, behind the wheel of an old Plymouth Acclaim packed with friends and relatives, including a teenager crammed in the back seat holding her 3-year-old nephew on her lap. John Ward, a passenger, said the car was racing south on Ridge Road near the Elkridge Furnace Inn....

As a child, Mary Canaan spent family road trips crammed with four siblings in the back seat of her parents' old Monte Carlo. No one used seat belts. And child safety seats? Practically unheard of. "I remember we used to put a piece of luggage in the back seat and that's what I used to sit on," said Canaan, of Pasadena, who now makes sure that her young grandchildren are always buckled up. Starting Monday, Maryland will enforce one of the strictest child-passenger safety laws in the country, requiring children as old as 7 to be fastened in booster seats while riding in cars.

17 unsafe child seats turned in and crushedSeventeen unsafe child safety seats were crushed under the wheels of a 34-ton compactor at the county landfill yesterday morning.The seats had been turned in to C.R.A.S.H. (Carroll Resources to Advance Safer Highways) coalition for destruction.Additional safety seats, verified as being in good condition and never having been in a crash, will be used by the Carroll County Health Department Loaner Program. Anyone who cannot afford to purchase a child safety seat may apply to the department for a loaner, officials said.

IN YOUR SEPT. 8 editorial, you attributed the cause of recent Maryland highway fatalities to the increased speed limit.Your choice of causes was inaccurate and misleading. The truth is that highway deaths are down in those areas where the speed limit was increased to 65 miles per hour.The causes of the deaths of the more than 50 people killed in the last month on Maryland roads are quite clear -- aggressive driving, driver error, failure to wear seat belts and to use child safety seats.Of those fatalities, more than half were either not wearing seat belts or in child safety seats.

Seat belt law tightens on youngstersA NEW Maryland law requires that children be buckled into safety seats in cars until they are 4 years old or weigh 40 pounds and that children up to 10 must be secured in a safety seat or in a properly fastened seat belt.The old law required safety seats only until children were 3. The law, which adheres to the standards set by the American Academy of Pediatrics, applies to all passenger cars, lightweight trucks, vans and other multi-purpose vehicles. Children may use either full car seats or car booster seats, depending on their age and size.

Welcome to trauma-and-accident season. This summer, American children age 14 and younger will be rushed to emergency rooms nearly 3 million times for serious injuries - everything from car accidents to falls from skateboards to near drownings - according to the National Safe Kids Campaign, an international association dedicated to preventing childhood injury. More kids get hurt in summer than any other time of the year, pediatricians say. "You've got to anticipate the risks as much as you can," said Dr. Gary Smith of Ohio State University, chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee for Injury, Violence and Poison Prevention.

Del. waitress charged with stealing credit card numbers A woman from Belarus who worked as a waitress at a popular Fenwick Island, Del., restaurant has been arrested on federal charges of aggravated identity theft - accused of using a hand-held credit card reader to steal the account numbers of customers. According to court papers, Katsiaryna Kabiarets, 23, who had been living in Ocean City and was employed at Harpoon Hanna's during the summer on a temporary work visa, told investigators that she was approached by a Russian man in New York and that he gave her a small device to copy card numbers.

We bought a car with two air bags, because we thought it would be safer. Now we have heard that air bags can kill children. Should we have the passenger side air bag taken out?Air bags have already saved at least 900 lives, so we do not think you should have yours removed. Air bags combined with correctly used safety belts are the best available protection for adults during deadly frontal crashes. We suspect that adults ride in your front passenger seat. They will benefit from the air bag, if the car is involved in a crash.

WASHINGTON -- Car safety seats may not be as safe as their owners think they are.According to a new report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, only five of 16 recent car seat recalls had owner response rates greater than 10 percent."